Bronze And Black: A Collection of DN Oneshots
by sivvussa
Summary: Based on a keyword writing prompt: a collection of D/N stories! Most of these are new with a few of my older ones which I've revised since they belong in this collection. They skip around in time a little bit, and range from fluff to angst to adventure to… well, whatever the keywords suggest! Enjoy.
1. 1: Argue

Bronze and Black:

A Collection of D/N Oneshots by Sivvus

A/N: I wanted to write something a little lighter than my main stories, so I'm doing a keyword challenge from one of the groups on facebook. Alongside this I've decided to put all of my Daine/Numair oneshots into one fic, so most of these will be new (with keywords) and a few will be older ones which belong in this collection. They skip around in time a little bit, and range from fluff to angst to adventure to… well, whatever the keywords suggest! But always D/N, because those two just belong together.

"Argue" – Set just before the start of EM

Daine heard the noise through the black blur of sleep, and mentally groaned. She desperately wanted to crawl back inside her dream and fall asleep, but the harsh inhalation made her skin crawl. It sounded like one of the animals was gasping for breath, and she had to help them as soon as possible. Still, she couldn't will herself to wake up. _Odds bobs! Being tired is better than letting someone choke to death, girl!_ She told herself sternly, and wrenched her eyes open.

It wasn't an animal. The creature looking at her with narrowed brown eyes stood on two paws, not four, and wore an all-too-human glare. Daine muttered a curse and rolled over. Even if she had a nightmare, she thought stubbornly, it would be better than having to talk to that… that _woman. _

The noise happened again, an infuriated sniff, and Daine rolled onto her back to glare at the intruder. "_What_?" she croaked, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice. The lady glared back.

"What are you _doing_?" Infalda demanded, keeping her voice low. Daine blinked, wondering what she'd done _now_. The woman had criticised her for every sin, from letting the animals bark too loudly, to feeding the castle cats plates of meat that wasn't greening. The woman was older than her, a lady-in-waiting to one of the duchesses whose names Daine could never remember, and the girl was supposed to act respectfully around her. Still, it was difficult to keep calm and polite when the woman was constantly yelling!

"Why're you in my room?" She asked groggily, sitting up. Then she caught sight of the woman's scornful look, and glanced around her. "Ah," she realised, and ran a hand through her curls awkwardly. "_I'm_ not in my room."

"No," the woman started, and drew a breath to say something else when the door clicked open. Both of them looked up. It was rather disconcerting for Numair, who stepped through the door to be met by two bright-eyed gazes. He stared at Infalda for a long moment, looking rather nonplussed, before shutting the door gently behind him.

"Oh," he said, recovering himself. "Daine, you're awake!"

"Why is she _here_, darling?" As always, Infalda's voice was sweeter than honey when she spoke to her lover, but she couldn't hide the irritation in her voice at Daine being greeted first. Numair missed it, though, with his usual careless obliviousness, and put down the book he was carrying carefully on the table.

"She fell asleep reading last night, Inni." He explained lightly, and turned a guileless smile towards the girl. "I didn't want to wake you up, magelet. I know how hard Thayet's had you working, getting ready for Carthak. I hope you don't mind."

"No, why would…" Daine started, and winced when the lady shot her a dark look.

"Well, _I _mind. People talk, you know!"

"People like you?" The girl retorted snidely. Infalda raised her chin and ignored her, so Daine kept speaking, just to take a jab at the snooty hag. Her voice was halfway between playful and vengeful. "It was a nice thing he did, and I'm fair grateful. I mean, even if he _does_ always steal the blankets…"

"Daine…" Numair started, a warning note in his voice as he glanced at Infalda, who had gone quite pink. The girl shrugged and ignored him.

"You… you slept here, with her? And… _always? _This happens a lot?" The woman demanded, rounding on Numair. The mage held up his hands in what was meant to be a placatory gesture, actually taking a step backwards.

"Daine," he said, almost laughing in frustration at the stupidity of the situation, "I am going to kill you for this."

"No you won't." She said placidly. "Inni, my _dearest loveliest one…_ of course he slept here. It's _his bed, _you idiot. Where else would he go? I mean, he's obviously bored with you, or else you'd know exactly where he was last night, wouldn't you?"

Infalda blinked, and her pink skin turned to a blotchy white. Numair shot Daine another black look, but she could tell that she had guessed right. She sighed with something close to relief and rubbed sleep from her eyes. _Well, I've said this much, _she thought, _I guess this will be my last chance to say anything else. Numair's only letting me speak because it's the first time I've ever… ever fought with one of his women. He looks so stunned! _

"You little cow." Infalda said poisonously, "How dare you speak to me like that?"

Daine grinned. "Thank you! Now I don't need to explain how you talk to me when you think no-one's watching."

Infalda blinked and looked around. In her anger she'd obviously forgotten that there was anyone else in the room. She drew a breath, meeting Numair's glare, and started to speak.

The scene was not pleasant.

Afterwards, Daine expected Numair to come back into the room in a black mood, or to storm away and disappear into the library for a few hours until his quick temper calmed down. Instead, to her surprise, the man walked slowly back into his room and shut the door behind him, looking thoughtful. When she cleared her throat he looked up, losing his train of thought, and sat down next to her on the bed. Daine mentally shrugged and combed her hair through with her fingers, knowing that when he was thinking that deeply the words would emerge at their own pace, or not at all.

"Daine," he asked in an unusually hesitant voice, "Why didn't you tell me?"

She flicked her eyes up at him and then shrugged off the concern. "It's happened before. I just haven't… wouldn't normally… she started it!" The words became defensive as she struggled to understand his odd smile. "If your girlfriends yell at me, Numair, I'm cussed well going to yell _back." _

He smiled and ruffled her hair. "I know you can fight your corner, magelet. I'm not angry that you yelled at her. I'm just confused as to why you had to in the first place. Have you two been arguing with each other? I mean, I didn't think you and Infalda had much in common."

"Apart from you, you mean?" The girl was amused enough at the bewildered expression on his face to make her suggestion easier to say: "Numair, if I fall asleep here again you should probably wake me up. She's right, you know. People _do _talk. She's not the first one to get jealous of you, honestly, and knowing you she won't be the last."

He scowled and waved a hand – the same gesture he made when anyone brought up this conversation. "It's none of their business. We know there's nothing like that going on, and so do all our friends. You never upset any of the other ladies, anyway. Infalda was an exception. Perhaps someone is spreading rumours, but it'll die down quickly enough."

"Odds bobs, Numair." Daine shook her curls irritably and stood up, planting her hands on her hips. "You want to know what's changed? _I _have. Your ladies can see that I'm not a little girl any more, even if you can't. That's what's making them hate me, not some rumours and not Infalda being any worse. Don't make it into some grand conspiracy when all I'm trying to say is that it's fair improper for me to be sharing a bed with you!"

He went a deep red, and looked at his feet. "Your accent gets thicker when you're annoyed." He muttered.

"Oh, bother my accent." She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. Numair didn't watch her go – he was used enough to her dramatic exits even to be able to anticipate how loudly the door would crash behind her. He knew that she would calm down soon enough and mutter some half-formed apology at lunch with her unique blend of guilt and stubbornness. He sighed and linked his hands behind his head, leaning back and thinking that this time it was him who should apologise. The problem with that, though, was that he would have to work out exactly what to admit before he apologised for it.

The problem, as he navigated it in his racing academic manner, was that Daine was not only correct, she was pointing out something that he had been aware of for quite some time. Perhaps he should act like it was a revelation to him that his little magelet had grown up into a young woman, but he doubted he could be sincere in that.

Besides, he thought, he hadn't really thought of her as a child when she _was _a child. She was just a Daine, the same as she was now. Her sense of wonder at the world and eagerness to learn all she could of it weren't childish traits others might have expected to fade, but a part of who she was. Growing up, as far as Numair ever thought about Daine in those terms, generally involved how she had gotten a little taller.

Recently, though, that mindset had failed him. Numair was aware that he was becoming more… what was the right word for it? He frowned and tugged at his nose, mentally sorting through synonyms. _Nervous _was too twitchy, and _scared _was too strong, but the word belonged somewhere in the middle. He had known she was changing, but he had been dreading the day when _she _realised that. When she noticed the way that the stable boys were watching her and understood it, or worse – Numair forced himself to finish the line of thought – when she looked at them in the same way.

It would drive a wall between them, he thought, and he didn't want that. And he couldn't really talk to anyone about it, because he didn't know how to explain the complicated mixture of feelings that coloured the thought. It wasn't that he didn't want her to find someone and be happy, it was just that he knew he would be jealous, and he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He was as close to her as a father or a brother, but he was neither of those things, not really. He was her friend. Friends had no right to get as protective as he did.

The Daine who fell asleep without a moment's hesitation in his rooms was like a daughter or a sister: completely relaxed around him and utterly unconcerned about proprietary, because such concerns had nothing to do with the way things were between them. If she was worried now then that version of her would soon be swept away, and both of them would have to decide what they actually were to one another. It wouldn't be enough to be just themselves, because the outside world wouldn't accept that answer.

The fact that the real world – no, he corrected the phrase in his head – the fact that the _gossips_ were starting to encroach on their uncomplicated friendship hurt him. But he had always known that, eventually, that would happen.

"She has to grow up sooner or later, dolt." The mage muttered to himself, and stared up at the ceiling with a self-depreciating grin. "Unless you really thought in ten years she'd be married and yet still somehow this close to her old teacher. That would just be…" he pulled a face and used the girl's own turn of phrase, "…fair foolish, wouldn't it?"

For some reason the vague thought of her getting married made his head hurt. He rolled onto his side and wished the blankets didn't still carry her scent.


	2. 2: Thunderstorms

2: "Thunderstorms" – Set during the Scanran War

It was the first time most of the gathered soldiers had even seen the wildmage, let alone witnessed the black mage's legendary magic, and yet afterwards, when they were asked what had happened, they shuffled their feet and looked away. What others thought might be an interesting piece of gossip to tell when they were safe by their own firesides had been so intense to witness that they felt ashamed for even thinking of retelling the story.

The black mage had stalked the courtyard with typical impatience, but this time instead of pacing and running one hand through his already-tangled hair he muttered to himself, staring up at the sky with an expression that mixed worry with anger. The guards knew better than to try to speak to him, but they watched him closely. He looked like he might scorch the dark, wind-striped clouds from the sky.

They rumbled again, and another jagged bolt of harsh lightning streaked across the sky. The mage flinched.

Daine had been gone for nearly a month, carrying messages between the different fortifications while the mid-summer deluge made the roads impassable. It didn't matter to her that the roads had been washed out into sloughs of impassable mud, or that there were enough mosquitos drifting along the humid, steaming rivers to make even the hardiest man sick. Numair had been glad that, for once, his lover had found some task which didn't seem to involve risking her life every two seconds. For a while he had been almost relaxed, almost happy, although he missed his friend keenly.

Then the king had sent for Daine while she was resting her wings in Haven, trusting her with a message for the camp commanders which might turn the war. It was something about the Scanran killing machines, Numair knew, although until Daine returned with the actual message his thoughts were merely speculative. She darted back to Corus and once she had the message the wildmage flew as fast as she could between each of the defensive posts spreading the word. Numair looked up at the inky, writhing sky. She was due to end her whirlwind flight here.

Everything would have been easy if it hadn't been for the jagged blades of the thunderstorm.

Numair tugged at his nose and looked up at the sky. He _knew_ that she was flying through it. The lightning tore swathes from stone and scorched trees atop mountains, but Veralidaine Sarrasri would undoubtedly be flying through it. Lives depended on her giving the message to the trusted knights that Jonathan had listed, and of course that meant that Daine viewed her own life with a casual dismissiveness.

"Magelet, if you die I'll never forgive you." The mage whispered, hearing his words underscored by another roar of thunder. The rain had started now, warm as spilled blood in the humid summer air, but he barely noticed. He stared up at the sky. There wasn't a single word in Old Thak that would calm a storm. They didn't call thunder the wrath of the gods for nothing.

He was drenched, dashing water from his eyelashes every few seconds, by the time he saw the distant speck. The sight made him pale – she was flying much higher than she normally did and the wind that tore through the black clouds was dragging her about with harsh, merciless force. It must have carried her to the dizzying heights, for although he saw her bank her wings and try to drop through the air currents, the storm dragged her back up again before she could land.

"Daine!" he cried hoarsely. The soldiers looked around, confused, and then followed his line of sight. They pointed at the distant speck and yelled to each other over the roar of the storm. Numair barely noticed. He ran to the middle of the courtyard, still staring up desperately.

She was exhausted. He could tell that even from here. She fought the wind stubbornly, but there were moments when her wing-beats faltered and the storm tossed her about like a rag. There was a lull in the thunder, and the plaintive sound of a lone cormorant shriek spilled over the courtyard. There was terror in the sound. Numair understood it far better than any of the soldiers who feared the lightning or the thunder. Daine's real enemy was the wind: the way that it dragged her up into the clouds and refused to let her rest. If her exhausted mind lost its grip on her bird form then she would fall like a stone, and from that height even if Numair caught her with his gift the impact would still kill her.

He slammed both his hands down onto the ground. This was no time to be refined; he dug his fingernails into the dirt, feeling them scrape painfully against the stones as he sent out waves of black magic, anchoring himself to solid ground. Then he looked up at the tiny struggling speck above him and closed his eyes, sending his mind and his magic shrieking upwards to the heavens.

A flash of lightning.

A billow of cloud, dark and sinuous like smoke.

A bird, wide winds spread painfully against the air currents, a scrap of writing clutched so tightly in its claw that the spelled paper looked like fabric.

He couldn't stop the wind. He might as well try to stop the sun from shining. But he could shield her, just enough. He reached out from the ground, and the lightning and the wind dragging against his far-away mortal shell made him feel stretched, thin. Then he whispered an arcane word, and for a moment the shield bloomed in the sky. Raindrops ran off the sides of it like glass. The bird shrieked and lost her balance in the sudden absence of wind, plummeting down for endless, breathless moments until she banked her wings and steadied herself, tail fanning out widely as she caught her breath, keening softly.

_It's okay, sweetling, _the man whispered from the ground, knowing that only the soldiers could hear him. He sank down into a tailor's seat, eyes flickering wildly behind his closed lids as he held the distant shield in place. The words were more to convince himself than Daine, anyway. She started flying down, but his shield was too far away to hold strongly. It felt as fragile as cobweb as the wind ripped at it. _It's okay. It's okay… _

Then a bolt of lightning tore through the shield and it shattered, exploding above the courtyard in a flurry of magic and electricity and raindrops that crashed down painfully onto their heads long seconds after the shield was destroyed. Numair cried out and instinctively covered his head with his hands, then gritted his teeth and scrabbled back at the drenched land with torn fingernails. This time when he sent his gift upwards he needed the anchor, needed something to stop him from flinging it too far and being swept away in the wind like the poor bird. Her frantic wing-beats against the wind eddies were only just helping her to stay in one place, and if she tried to move downwards she was sent spiralling out of control. Numair watched with his heart in his mouth as she corkscrewed down into a helpless dive, gasping out a long-held breath when she righted herself.

The lightning had dazed her, he saw, and she shook her head dizzily. If the shield hadn't been there it would have hit her – but then, Numair thought, it might have been the shield which attracted it. Lightning and the gift were odd bedfellows. He curbed his net of magic from soaring wildly through the sky and reached out with his soaking wet human hands, long fingertips shaking with effort as he slowly closed them into claws. He couldn't get a hold of Daine; she was moving too much, thrown about like a leaf by the storm.

_I have to bring __everything __down. _He thought, and clutched with his gift at the solid breaths of wind, at the raindrops, at the static lightning and the debris of leaves. He clutched wildly whirling twigs and suffocated insects, doused petals and the struggling bird. He grabbed all of them and pulled. He dragged them down towards him steadily and didn't let a single raindrop fall away. His jaw was clenched so tight that he heard his ears creak in protest, and around him the soldiers scattered as the paralysed swathe of sky drew closer and closer. He pulled it as near as he dared and then his eyes flew open and he simply let go.

In a burst of air, as if it were breathing out, the frozen tempest burst in the courtyard. Everyone standing there was thrown back, drenched and breathless from the repercussion, apart from the mage who had wedged his fingertips grimly into the ground and now searched the sky. The small bird, struggling to stay awing at the peak of the tempest, croaked out a cry as the spell burst around it and the raindrops flooded away to the ground. It was too much, too sudden for her tired mind to bear, and she lost her exhausted grip on her bird form.

In the same heartbeat that he had released the magic Numair had flung out a hand. Swathes of raw black light flooded from his fingertips. It was a clumsy spell, a desperate flood of power which grabbed at everything it touched.

There was a cry which was abruptly cut short, and the mage struggled to his feet and ran forward. "Daine!" He cried, and slipped over as he reached the middle of the courtyard.

The girl who was lying there rolled onto her back, streaking her skin with mud, and smiled at him in complete exhausted euphoria. "You caught me!" she grinned, and then she started trembling and her voice sounded more like a sob. "Oh, Numair!"

He threw his arms around her, rough with the remnants of utter panic. "You are such an _idiot_, Daine!" He cried, and tried to hug her and shake her at the same time, barely hearing his own words over the storm. "What were you thinking, trying to fly through that?"

"Same as you, I reckon. You can't yell at me when you _knew_ I would do it. You were watching for me." She kissed him, her fingers leaving a swathe of mud across his cheek as she tried to wipe his tears and the rain away. "Oh my love, don't cry, you _caught _me."

"You scared me half to death!" He snapped, and then returned her kiss fiercely. "Why must you _always_ do that?"

"The message!" She gasped, and pulled away from him. She tried to push herself up in the mud but her sore, swollen arms shook uncontrollably when she put any weight on them, and she cursed broadly. Numair caught her around the waist and helped her to stand just as a soldier came running over to them. The man blushed fiercely when she held out the scrap of paper and tried to take it from her with his eyes half closed.

"Odds bobs, there's more mud on me than there are clothes on you," she laughed, and pressed the paper into his hand. It had been enchanted to resist water, and it looked ridiculously clean next to her filthy fingers. Even taking a small step towards the soldier had made her legs shake, and she almost slipped forwards into the mud before Numair's hands encircled her waist and held her steady. The soldier bowed awkwardly and sprinted away. Daine smiled tiredly but triumphantly at the mage.

"I did it," she whispered, and then grinned. "I did it!"

"Well done," he said, and meant it. Flying between the defences in so short a time was an incredible feat; doing half of it in the growing storms was frankly unbelievable.

"It's a sneak pincer attack." Daine said quietly, knowing he would want to know what was written on the note. "The quicker everyone gets into position, the more we're likely to surprise the enemy. Jon didn't want to risk sending out a team of couriers in case one of them got trapped on the roads. I said I could make it around the border in less than a week." She looked up at the sky then, and smiled rather wryly when she had to blink raindrops from her eyelashes. "I wasn't counting on the thunderstorm, though."

"Why _are_ we still standing outside in the middle of a storm?" He asked, and the humour in his voice chased away some of the terror he had felt from the moment he had seen her in the sky. She laughed and kissed his nose.

"You tell me, clever! I can't actually walk. I thought you'd realised that – or else, why would you have your hands around me in such a familiar way, Master Salmalin?"

"No reason," he returned the gibe, sounding aloof, and then picked her up in one easy motion, walking carefully so as not to slip in the mud. "Perhaps I missed you," he suggested, and she nuzzled against his shoulder, cat-like in her affection. It wasn't until Numair had carried her to his room and set her down by the fire that the light was bright enough for her to see the state of his shirt.

"It's a good thing you're already soaked, I'm getting mud all over you." She said, and giggled. She was lightheaded with tiredness. Numair brushed at the shoulder of his shirt and raised an eyebrow.

"I think that's where that poor soldier you embarrassed has the advantage, Daine." He teased, and rubbed her cheek with his handkerchief. It came away dark. "You see? His clothes are less likely to rub off than your mud, I bet."

"I fail to see how that's an advantage," she said lazily, surprising a half-shocked laugh from him. She grinned wickedly and pushed herself a little more upright, happy that her arms had stopped shaking but wishing they would stop _aching_. Numair took her left hand, gently cleaning off more of the dirt. Daine sighed and watched her pale skin emerge from the brown. "I might have to stick with the mud anyway, Numair. I don't have any clothes here."

"You can borrow some of mine, you know that." He said, and she couldn't tell if he was actually following the joke or not. He was hard enough to follow when she _hadn't _been flying for hours! She opted for _not, _and raised an eyebrow at him. He missed it, because he was rather intently running the handkerchief from her elbow to her shoulder and back again. There wasn't a great deal of mud there, Daine noticed, and hid a smile. Numair didn't seem to have noticed _that. _

Her voice grew mischievous. "Wandering around in a man's shirt? What _will _people say?"

He glanced up, raising an eyebrow but keeping his voice quite serious. "After you've flown through a thunderstorm to get here, Daine? I imagine they'd say, 'There's that crazy mage who should look out a window before agreeing to Jon's plans'." He smiled at her suddenly stricken impression and kissed her forehead, "Don't mind my teasing. I'm very proud of you, magelet."

"It's not the teasing. I have a confession," she said, and when he looked at her enquiringly she blushed and said, "It's… well… I did know about the storm. I didn't think it would be as bad as it is, but I did… know about it."

He took her other hand and turned it over so he could clean her palm. "So why did you agree?" He asked, and there was an odd note in his voice. "Jon would have understood."

"I know," she said, "But the weather scryers said if I waited it out, it would have been another week before I could fly safely. I was… a fair bit more selfish than they knew. They asked me if I'd risk it and I said yes, and they thought it was just… my wanting to bring the message as quickly as possible. But I wasn't thinking about that. Not _just_ about that. It would have been another week away from you, and I was missing you so much that I didn't think about the message at all, not really. Not like they think I did. If people are proud of me I feel guilty."

She could quite understand his expression until he kissed her. She understood that kiss, far more than any of the clever words he might have used. The panicked roughness of their first few embraces had faded away with the sounds of the storm, and instead there was a slow sweetness that pooled in her stomach and fluttered against her skin wherever he touched her.

The handkerchief brushed against her shoulder and to the floor, and it wasn't until she felt the fabric against her bare shoulder-blade that she realised she had drawn Numair down, still kissing him, to lie with her on the dry floorboards beside the hearth. His shirt was warm; the wet fabric clung to her skin and under it she could feel his heart racing. She pressed her ear to his chest and smiled, listening to the wonderful living sound.

"Don't feel guilty." He said, and the sound rumbled richly in his chest. "You did it, which is a marvel in itself, and it won't matter to most people _why_ you did it. They'll come up with their own answers. Just like, it won't matter why you're really wearing my clothes, they'll still tell the same stories about us."

"Stories?" She looked up and grinned at his expression.

"Well, perhaps that wasn't the best example." His fingers gently lingered on her skin and traced the shape of her face. Then he pulled a face at her and sat up. "Anyway, speaking of clothes, I need to change mine."

"Why?" she looked up at him with a guileless expression that didn't fool him for a moment.

"Daine, I'm soaked to the skin," he laughed. "I need to get out of these wet clothes."

"Oh, I agree," she smiled wickedly and caught his hand before he could move away. "But it's plain unfair for you to flaunt all your changes of clothes when I only have my mud, you know."

"You're incorrigible." He laughed, and stripped off his soaked shirt. His eyes met hers with an amused, heated challenge. "Well, Miss I-can-hardly-walk, what other things in your life are just 'plain unfair'? Perhaps I can fix them _all_ this easily."

"Some lanky dolt keeps teasing me." She retorted, and then lowered her eyes, "And that was the first proper kiss I've had in weeks."

"I can relate," he smiled, and gently raised her chin with his long fingertips. She met his eyes, seeing the love that glowed in their dark depths and unconsciously returning it in her own grey gaze.

"And… I did miss you," she whispered, and her eyes shimmered for a moment. "I don't like us being apart for so long. Not when… the war…"

"I can't fix that, dearest." His voice was gentle, and he kissed her forehead. "I would if I could."

"I know," she reached up, ignoring the fading ache in her arm, and stroked his cheek. "I don't think it _can _be fixed. Not until all this silliness is done with. I know that. I just… I don't like it."

He didn't answer, but brushed a curl of her drying hair from her eyes and carefully tucked it behind her ear. Rather than drawing his hand away, he slowly trailed his fingers around her ear, down the side of her neck, and then further down. Daine sighed and shut her eyes, shivering deliciously at his caress.

"You're here now." He said, bending to kiss her neck. She made a small, unbidden sound and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, drawing him down closer. He smiled and moved to the other side of her throat. "And I'm here with you, Daine."

Her lips parted, but before she could answer he kissed her again and his hands moved gently to caress her breasts. His touch was warm and loving, and it scattered her thoughts to the wind. She struggled against the flood of desire that rose languidly in her blood, knowing that she had more to say. She wanted to know that he _understood_. She needed him to know that she wasn't just saying these things because of the storm, or because he had caught her, or because they were making love. She arched against his hands and drew a ragged breath, managing to whisper the few words that mattered.

"It'd take far more than a thunderstorm to keep me away. I love you too much." She found the stubbornness to push him back for a moment so she could see his face, see the love there and let him see her own. He didn't smile at her dramatic words, but matched her with all the warmth in his deep, black eyes.

"I know, love." He kissed her slowly, tenderly, and then he let himself smile. It was not a mocking expression, but a simple, loving promise that held intensity far beyond simple affection. "Let the thunderstorms rage. It won't matter. They won't win. I'll always catch you."


	3. 3: Embarrassed

"Embarrassed"

Set after Wolf-Speaker

"Kitten, this really is the last straw!" The man bellowed, and amid the clatter of falling books, plates and papers there was a shriek. Anyone watching the doorway of the Black Mage's study would have seen a small streak of scaled skin darting by as a tiny dragon fled for her life.

There was still a piece of paper stuck to her hind food. Kitten shook it as she ran but it didn't fall off. She muttered to herself and kept running, heading for one of the bolt-holes the castle cats had shown her. It wasn't until she got there and was safely tucked away behind the ancient, heavy tapestry that hid it that she stopped to catch her breath.

The man had followed her, but he couldn't see the small lump of dragon behind the loudly patterned cloth. Kitten could hear him breathing heavily, angrily muttering to himself. Then she heard a second lot of footsteps – lighter, less angry – and the dragon shivered. She was ashamed now, not because she felt any remorse for disturbing the boring man's spell, but because her mother had found out.

"She knocked over a construct." The man didn't even greet the woman, he just snapped out the words. "She did it deliberately. Reached out and pulled out the leg of a tripod. That was _five hours _of work!"

There was a long silence, and then a softer voice said, "I'll find her." Kitten felt the odd drawing sensation as her mother gathered her magic and sent it out around the castle. She rolled her eyes – now she'd have to avoid every cat, mouse and sparrow in the entire keep if she wanted to stay hidden.

"I can't believe she would do that. Not that she would mess up a spell- gods know she's done _that _often enough, but why do it on _purpose? _What a petty, spiteful, _mean _thing…"

"She's just a baby." The woman's voice was stating a fact, not defending her ward, and Kitten imagined her shrugging. "All babies have their smash-everything stage."

"Well, it's high time she grew out of it." The man's voice was dark, and the dragon shuddered. "Don't make excuses for her, Daine. I'm sick of the way she's been acting since we got back from Dunlath. I used to be able to lock her out of my room, but now she treats it like it's her own personal playground. You haven't stopped her – are you even _trying_? You're supposed to be watching her, not letting her run wild! She's been spying on everybody, whistling spells at people for no good reason, and causing _chaos. _It has to stop! If you won't do something then I cursed well will."

"Don't tell me how to raise her." Daine's voice was hurt, mulish. "I _said_ I'd find her."

"Make sure you do." He retorted, and then stormed out of the room.

There was a short silence, and Kitten pricked her ears up to hear the muffled sound of angry breathing through the thick tapestry cloth. The dragon jumped when Daine abruptly muttered to herself, thinking she'd been discovered, but the tearful words weren't directed at the immortal.

"Numair Salmalin, sometimes you are a _mule-headed-pig." _

And with what was possibly the rudest thing she had ever said out loud about her teacher, the girl stormed from the room.

Kitten scowled and clawed at the back of the tapestry, tearing lines in the thick wool. She wouldn't normally get involved in an argument between the two humans she thought of as her adoptive parents, but this time she had to take sides. The man had upset her mother, and Kitten was furious. _No-one _upset her mother. Ignoring the fact that her own behaviour had triggered their argument, Kitten squawked to herself and ripped viciously at the tapestry again, gouging out a chunk of some knight's thigh.

The action made something else flutter in the dim light, and Kitten sniffed at it. It was paper – dusty, inky paper. Of course – the scrap that had stuck to her leg when she'd knocked over the shiny glass spell that made such an amazing smashing sound! She cooed at it and picked up the paper to read in the light of the main room.

Slowly, arduously, she ran a claw down the runes and scribbled notes in Common. It was a spell. A very _interesting _spell. She whistled, and this time there was a note of smugness in the musical sound. Kitten had a _plan. _

She had to wait until dinnertime before she could put it into action, which meant that the dragonet had a very long day of hiding in boring places from all of the castle animals. She felt quite guilty when she caught a glimpse of her mother as Daine walked into the dining hall. The girl looked almost desperately worried, and stared into every dark corner as if expecting to see the little immortal peering back at her. Kitten shrank back behind the sconce she was clinging to. Most people didn't think to look up when they were searching, including the animals. The only other inhabitants of the rafters were the cats, who were perverse enough not to run straight to the wildmage as soon as they saw the dragon.

Well, no matter if she felt bad now. It would pass. After all, Kitten was acting nobly on her mother's behalf, protecting her from the villainous foe…! Or however those pages always put it when they told each other stories. Kitten cocked her head at a jaunty angle and ran nimbly along the timber rafters.

Daine had started knotting pieces of wool recently. It had raised a few eyebrows amongst the court, who had never seen the activity as anything other than a rustic handicraft. The girl was actually very good at it, fashioning intricately knotted bracelets from leftover scraps. She did it more when she was anxious. Today as she sat down she was already pulling a half-finished loop from her belt-purse and fiddling with the spiral of knots on it. She hadn't sat near Numair, Kitten saw, and her friends from the riders came and sat with her after a time. Daine smiled at Miri and pushed her knot work to one side so she could eat, but didn't join in with her friends' light-hearted banter. After a while they made their farewells and left, but Daine stayed. She braided the wool without really noticing it, eyes busy with looking around the room for her ward.

Kitten cooed softly down to her mother, but didn't climb down from the rafters just yet. There was one more thing she had to do first… aha! She spotted Numair, his head and shoulders looming over everyone else as he made his way to another seat. He wasn't intentionally choosing where he sat. He was so wrapped up in whatever line of thought he had in his head that he was oblivious to his whereabouts. He probably hadn't even realised Daine was upset, Kitten thought angrily. She climbed over the rafters towards him and perched above his head, stretching her long neck downwards to get as close as possible.

He was scribbling on a piece of paper. Kitten leaned closer, and a shadow of her head fell across his writing. He looked up, frowning, and the dragon panicked. Taking a deep breath, she whistled and croaked at high speed. The complicated spell she had read earlier was different in dragon magic, but she felt the reassuring surge of silver magic as she finished the spell and chuckled darkly.

"What are you…?" Numair stared up at the immortal and then blanched and looked at his hands. His eyes widened. "Kit…!"

His hands were turning green. Odd spider-web strands oozed across his fingers, and when he tried to flex them outwards the webbing clung to him like skin. He was so intent on staring at his hands that he didn't realise he was shrinking until the table loomed above his head, and then he opened his mouth to shout for help.

"Crrrr-oooooak!" The black mage managed, and then wriggled in the loose pile of his clothes. Webbed feet emerged, and the mage hopped fitfully away from the clinging cloth. He looked up balefully.

"Ribbit?" said Numair-the-Frog.

Kitten sniggered, and then turned to climb down. She heard a few people talking, laughing, gasping – some members of the court had obviously seen Tortall's most powerful mage turning into a frog before their very eyes. They watched him eagerly, waiting for him to turn back into a human. The frog ribbited a few times. Then he sheepishly hopped down from the chair and snuck under the table.

Daine had almost finished her meal when she felt something touching her foot. Most people would have instinctively kicked the small weight away, but she was so used to small animals attaching themselves to her that her first instinct was to reach down and pick up the creature. It was a frog. She raised it to her eyes, frowning in confusion.

"Why are you inside the castle, little frog?" She asked softly, "Is something wrong?"

The frog didn't answer, and she put it down carefully beside her plate. "You shouldn't walk on the floor, you know. The dogs might get you."

The frog blinked, large wet eyes moving balefully around the room, and then looked straight at her again. Daine rested her chin on her hand.

"You have to speak if you want my help," she said. "I can understand you. What do you want?"

The frog croaked, and then made a dramatic, almost exasperated movement with one webbed hand and turned away. Daine sighed and took another mouthful of food. Sometimes animals didn't speak to her straight away. She was, after all, a human. She wondered how much of her life she spent waiting for the People to decide she wasn't a threat. She was just reaching for her water when she felt yet another weight on her foot, and couldn't help rolling her eyes.

"I'm not a pond, you know…" She looked down, and her face split into a wide grin. "_Kit!" _

The dragon preened smugly and raised her paws, wanting to be cuddled. Daine picked her up easily, tears shining in her eyes as she held the little immortal close. "I was so worried, you little terror! Where have you been?"

Kitten made an odd noise and waved her tail, jabbering away at high speed in her own unique language. She was clearly trying to explain. Daine blinked at her for a moment and then shook her head. It seemed that today was the day where no-one made any sense.

"I'm sorry, Kit. I don't know what you're telling me." She explained, and handed the dragonet a chunk of bread. Her hand brushed against the frog as she reached back from the platter, and the tiny amphibian ribbeted at her loudly and persistently. She scowled at it, starting to get irritated, and shifted the dragon in her lap.

"Kit," she said more seriously, "Tell me the truth. Were you hiding from Numair all day?"

The dragon hesitated, and then nodded.

"Why?" Daine glanced around the room, but couldn't see the mage anywhere. Even so, she lowered her voice. "It's not the first time you've upset him, and you know how he forgets that he's angry quick enough. You never hid for so long before."

Kitten gestured back towards the room where she had been hiding, and mimed out the argument she had seen. She ended with a brief, sympathetic pantomime of her mother being upset, and then her teeth appeared in a growl. Daine's eyes widened.

"You saw that?" She breathed, and then let the air out in a whoosh. The dragon nuzzled against her cheek sympathetically, and the girl tried to reassure her. "Kit, I… no, I'm fine. I was just upset, that's all."

Kitten eyeballed her, and then made the noise that always referred to Numair and bared her teeth again. Behind her, unnoticed, the frog suddenly looked very still.

"No, he wasn't _trying_ to upset me." Daine answered, and there was some stubborn patience in her voice when she carried on, as if this was something she'd told the dragon many times. "He won't've realised that he said anything hurtful. He's all mixed up in his work at the moment so… so we just don't matter as much. He didn't really mean what he said to me. He was just upset that you broke his spell."

The dragon made a rude noise and shifted, deliberately digging her paws into the bony parts of the girl's lap. Daine stopped her, and her hands were a little tighter than they might have been normally.

"Don't be so self-righteous, Kit. It was your fault, after all." Her lips quirked in an odd smile at the dragon's expression, and she tilted her head to one side. "And… he was right, wasn't he? I mean: you _did_ do it on purpose, didn't you?"

Kitten peeped once, and nodded shamefacedly. The girl choked back a laugh, and then looked up guiltily around the room again. There was an almost-sad note in her laugh. She nodded her understanding and tapped the dragon's nose. "He has been busy for a long time, hasn't he? I know you miss him, dearest, but breaking his constructs won't make him finish any quicker. Best to just let him get on with it, hm?"

The dragon shrugged, and then nodded in a solemn promise. Then her eyes widened in sudden guilt and she looked around frantically.

"Mistress Sarrasri!" A page ran up to them, almost breathless, and then stopped with a relieved whoosh of air when he looked at the table. "Oh, you did find him! Thank the gods, we were starting to think the dogs had caught him!"

"Him?" Daine blinked at the boy, and then followed his gaze to the frog. She bit her lip and looked up. "The… the frog?"

"Master Salmalin!" The page blustered, and didn't notice her blanch in his own panic. "He turned into the frog and everyone thought it was his spell, but when he didn't reappear we suddenly thought… what if someone else…"

"Numair?" Daine picked up the frog gingerly. "Is… that you?"

The creature croaked indignantly, but for some reason a lot of its previous fury seemed to have faded. He refused to meet her eyes. Daine narrowed her eyes and looked at him through her gift, seeing the tell-tale silver glint of dragon magic.

"Kit…" she growled, glaring down at the dragon. Kitten tried to look nonchalant as she hopped off her mother's lap, but she barely got a few bounds away before the girl grabbed her tail with her free hand and held her still. Her grey eyes were furious. "You fix this, Kit, right now!"

The dragon made an entreating noise, and then her eyes went huge and pleading. Daine sat down cross-legged on the floor-rushes beside her and shook her head, still holding tightly to the dragon's tail.

"No. I'm not listening. We'll stay right here until you fix it. And if you ever, _ever _turn anyone into a frog again I swear I will take you back to the cave where I found you and leave you there."

Kitten made a rude sound, clearly knowing it was a bluff, and folded her head onto her arms obstinately.

Daine switched her attention to the frog and smiled wanly. "We may be here for a fair while, Numair. I'm sorry. And I'm sorry I didn't understand you. I mean, I can't when you're a bird either, so… so I guess being shaped like that doesn't mean you're really a frog. So that's… that's something, I guess." Her lips quirked in a smile, and before she could take another breath she was laughing, giggling hysterically at the look of absolute dejection on the frog's face and the memory of its dramatic gestures when it tried to communicate.

"I'm sorry!" She gasped, trying to catch her breath. "But… you got turned into a frog!" and she was off again, in peals of ridiculous laughter. Kitten looked around, her eyes widening in confusion, and then she seemed to come to a decision. Whistling a few short, tuneless notes, she waved a paw and silver magic leeched into the air. There was a sound like someone gasping in breath before a sneeze, and suddenly the frog was growing. Daine put him down quickly, averting her eyes until he was quite human again. Then she looked around. She had to look away quite quickly. Numair was staring at his hands in stunned silence, and the girl saw exactly what was wrong.

"Uhm, Kit?" She said, another giggle leaping to her lips. "He's still… green."

The dragon shrugged, and mimed scrubbing at her scales. Apparently the green would wash off.

"I hope you're right," Daine told her, and then let her go. She expected the dragon to dart away again, as she usually did when she was in trouble, but instead the little immortal stood her ground. She raised her head cautiously and then, shamefacedly, she bowed and whistled a heartfelt apology to Numair.

"No." He shook his head, and then smiled crookedly at the dragon's look of tearful pleading. "I meant, no: don't apologise. I think… I think I might have deserved that one." He reached out and touched Kitten's head gently. "Let's say this makes us even, alright?"

Kit tilted her head to one side for a moment, suspicious of a trick, and then realised he was sincere. She peeped a delighted noise and jumped into his lap, nuzzling against him affectionately. Numair smiled at her, but he still couldn't look up and meet Daine's eyes.

"That was well done, magelet." He finally managed, not looking up. "I don't know if I could have coaxed her to change me back. I… I was wrong to say what I did to you today." He grinned suddenly, seeing the ridiculous humour in the situation, and looked up. "Not only are you a good mother, you have a daughter who has a most bizarre way of proving it to stubborn old mages like me!"

"She still shouldn't have done it, though." Daine answered, looking a little frazzled now that her laughter had passed. "You'll have no pudding for the next week, Kit. And don't make that noise!" She stood up and brushed rushes from her breeches, ignoring the dragon's anguished wail. "You're being punished. It's just plain _rude _to turn people into frogs. _And _to listen in on people's conversations, Numair! And… and just… all of it! You two are welcome to each other."

Numair grinned at the dragon when the girl angrily strode away, seeing the creature narrowing her eyes speculatively after her mother.

"I wouldn't bother, Kit." He muttered, "She'd be able to turn _herself_ back into a human."


	4. 4: Cub

Cub

Jon found Numair in the shadows of the corridor in the castle. The mage was leaning against the wall outside of his and Daine's rooms, his long legs spread halfway across the floor, head resting back against the stones. When the other man walked up to him Numair's eyes opened, and even in the torchlight Jon could see the dark shadows that ringed them.

"You're looking well," The king said, settling himself beside his friend. Normally such a blithe comment would have prompted a glare, but Numair barely reacted. Jon pressed on: "How is Daine?"

"Sleeping, thank the gods." Numair's voice was hoarse, and he ran a hand fitfully through his hair. "I think that midwife gave her something. Poppy, or… or… oh, I don't know. Gods know how long it'll last."

"Long enough," Jon tried to make his voice sound reassuring, which _did _win him a glare.

"It's been _days, _Jon. And even before that she couldn't sleep for more than a few hours without having to use her magic. Do you have _any _notion of…"

"So you haven't slept either," The other man interrupted mid-tirade. Numair started, and then laughed hollowly.

"How can I? They said I should try, but how can I when she…? I couldn't stay in there. I had to come outside. I had to… to think."

"And then they sent a messenger for me." Jon finished. "You _think_ rather dramatically, it seems."

Numair looked up, surprised out of his mood for a moment, and followed the king's line of sight to look down at his hands. Odd colours played across them as if he had coated them in oil. Now that he was aware of it he could feel the odd stillness in the air, too, as if everything were holding its breath. Any magic that had breathed in the still air was gone, drawn into his gift and waiting to be released. He clenched and unclenched a fist, watching the colours for a second.

"Oh." He eventually said, and his ears reddened in embarrassment. "I didn't realise I was doing that."

Jon laughed. "Are you joking? I could feel it plain across the city, and I wasn't trying to use my magic at all. Before the messenger found me I knew something was wrong. Oh, not _wrong_," he interrupted the mage's answer with the smooth diplomacy of a lifelong royal, "But… shall we say _unusual?" _

Numair rubbed his knuckles awkwardly with his opposite hand, slowly relaxing his fist back into an open palm. Some of the trapped magic sighed back into the frozen air, and Jon felt the goose-flesh on the back of his neck settle a little.

"I guess I thought Daine might need it," Numair said sheepishly.

"All the magic in the world – or in my city, come to think of it – couldn't make a baby come any faster than what the gods have planned." Jon sighed, and nodded out of the window towards the stables. They could both see the distant shapes of the Riders grappling with their ponies, who were planting their hooves obstinately into the ground. "Not your magic, and not whatever Daine's causing those horses to do, either. Nothing. When Thayet was having Roald I ordered almost every healer I could think of to help. In the end she yelled at me and I realised I might be overreacting… just a little. But even if it was a bad idea I felt better for doing it, when there wasn't much else I could do apart from wait."

"But that's exactly it!" The other man exclaimed. "They know what needs doing. I don't know what… what will help, or what Daine needs, or what she's going through. And you know she's not going to ask for my help, she's far too stubborn for that. And she knows what she's doing. I don't know what to do, and I just feel so _useless." _

"You think Daine knows what she's doing?" Jon sounded almost amazed. "Numair, she's probably as lost as you are. Even without the whole shapeshifting thing, I mean."

"Her mother's a midwife." Numair answered drily. "I hear that Sarra's quite well respected these days."

"Still, that's her mother, not Daine. I expect next you'll point out to me that your wife spends a lot of time delivering foals. Well, that's not the same thing either. Gods bless it, can we skip this part where you look down your nose at me and get to the part where you admit that I'm right?"

Numair didn't answer, so Jon took a deep breath and tried again. He was genuinely curious about the answer to the question, although he phrased it quite playfully. "Do you think your baby will be born as a human, or as an animal?"

That _did_ win him a glare. "I don't know. I'm trying not to think about it."

"Fine, then how about this – do you think that they'll have grey eyes, or black?"

"I don't…"

"Or how about – will it be a boy or a girl? Surely, if Daine knows everything, then she must have told you _that_."

"I don't… look, I know what you're doing, Jon. You're about as subtle as a brick."

"I'll have you know I'm celebrated for my diplomacy!"

"Of _course _that's what your subjects say… when they know you're listening." Despite his worry, the corners of Numair's mouth quirked upwards at the indignant expression on the king's face. He sighed and relaxed a little.

"Daine's been calling it _Cub_." Numair said, and pulled a rueful face. "That was the shape it seemed to take most often. Neither of us was really surprised about that, for some reason! A few months ago she said she was glad the baby had chosen one of her favourite shapes. I said I would only be glad if it ever chose to be a human." He grinned a little sheepishly. "I think I was even less subtle than you, your majesty!"

"It's the way you tell 'em." Jon quipped, and raised an eyebrow. "I can't imagine Daine taking that comment well."

"It sounded worse than I meant. I didn't mean I wouldn't love the baby even if it is born as a wolf cub – although I sincerely hope it isn't! At the time I meant that I'd watched Daine growing more and more tired shifting from one shape to another, and I almost… I almost _hated_ the baby for doing that to her."

"Hate? Hate's a strong word, Numair." Jon pointed out. The other man looked at him and his eyes were quite steady.

"It's the right word for how I felt back then. The first time the baby changed shape we honestly thought that she had miscarried. It was _terrifying_, Jon. I had no idea what to do or how to help and Daine was… she was in so much pain she could barely move. She tried to meditate to get away from some of the pain while I ran for a healer, but then I heard her call me back. She could see the wild magic the baby was using, and we worked out what was wrong.

When she changed shape the bleeding stopped and the pain went away. We told everyone that it was just some odd quirk of her magic that meant she had to shapeshift. We didn't mention how, for the next few weeks, both of us were scared to sleep in case it happened again."

"Gods, Numair." The whole story was new to Jon.

"Well, at the time I blamed the baby for it. I wasn't used enough to the idea of it being a real person to think of it as anything other than this creature that was hurting my Daine. But then…"

He remembered…

… _Daine's eyes had fluttered open and she sighed in relief as the baby finally stopped its fretful motion and was quiet. She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating and calling on her magic until she was fully human again. It was only then that she took in where she was. Earlier in the evening they had both been reading by the fire, and she had fallen asleep with her head resting in Numair's lap. By the looks of the dying fire he'd been keeping very still so that she wouldn't wake up, but it was just as likely that he was captivated by whatever he was reading. Even when he was relaxed like this Daine could feel the now-familiar frustrated anger radiating from Numair almost as keenly as she could feel the small movements of the child growing inside her. Carefully, almost shyly, she sat up and leaned her head against his shoulder. _

"_The Badger __said__ it would be difficult, you know." She said conversationally._

"_Hm?" Numair looked up from his book but he couldn't see her expression. "What would be difficult, Sweet?"_

"_Babies." She replied with her usual bluntness. "He said that divine children are difficult."_

_Numair laughed shortly. The sound was more surprised than amused since he genuinely hadn't expected her to say anything like that. "Perhaps he was just describing _you_, Daine. You know how he despairs of your behaviour…" _

"_He'd despair of any kit that doesn't live in a set." She grinned, taking the teasing in good spirits since it seemed to have broken through his resentment. The man's mood soon darkened again, though, and his voice was a little flat. _

"_I don't think he meant you'd have problems, magelet. We're both about as normal and mortal as it's possible to be."_

"_I don't know if that's true. For instance, most people wouldn't use 'normal' to describe someone who's prob'ly the most powerful mage in the world." She said. "And that's not even thinkin' about my parents. Even if my folks were mortal I don't think any child of yours would be 'normal'!" _

"_Just me? But it has your magic." Numair traced the line of her jaw absentmindedly. "I think we can be sure of that!" _

"'_It'?" Daine wrinkled her nose at him. "Poor little Cub, being an 'it'! Well then, I think you're right about that. But bet it has your eyes." _

"_That has very little to do with the logistics of it being the difficult child of a mage and a god-child." Numair couldn't quite follow her line of thought, especially not the odd half-giggle that his words provoked. _

"_Are you joking, Numair? It has __everything __to do with it! The baby's not just a little ball of magic, you know. It's arms and legs and eyes and toes and every single part of it comes from us, not just its magic. And that makes all the difficulty worth it, don't' you think?" She grinned. "Even the way it likes being difficult comes from us. I'm blaming you for that." _

_He was silent for a long time, and after a few moments Daine took the book from him, closed it and put it to one side. Catching up his hand, she wove her fingers through his for a moment and then pressed it to her stomach. _

"_You've never said," she murmured, "What you hope the baby might be like. Not one word, Numair. And I know it's been fair difficult for you to see a cub or a bird or a foal and still think of it as a little human child. But it __is __a human, Numair. When it's asleep it has two legs and two arms like any other baby. It's a person, and one I'm looking forward to meeting! And that makes __all__ the problems worth it." _

_Numair didn't answer, but this time his silence was more thoughtful and a lot of his anger seemed to have faded. He put his awareness into his hand, and for the first time he didn't draw on his gift to see the child. He closed his eyes and thought about the strange, vulnerable life which slept so peacefully bare centimetres from his palm, and for the first time he felt an odd flicker of protectiveness towards the baby. _

"_I…" he cleared his throat, and out of the thousands of words that were reeling in his mind in that moment he found a few that he could actually say aloud. "I hope that it's clever."_

"_With a da like you?" Daine smiled and kissed his cheek. "It'll be reading ancient scrolls before it can even walk." _

…

"…but then?" Jon prompted, and Numair looked up, startled from his memory.

"Ah yes, that's right." He blithered meaninglessly, and then corrected himself. "Daine started calling it _Cub. _At first the nickname annoyed me. But every time I corrected her it meant I was reminded of the fact that it _was _a real person. So the name started out as one of her bizarre ways to make a point, but then it kind of stuck."

"So when it's born…" Jon started with a wicked grin.

"I am _not _letting her name it Cub." Numair looked stern. "Besides, we've chosen other names."

"Which are…?"

"Ah, no. Even if you order me to tell you, I won't!" The mage raised his nose into the air stubbornly. "Think of it as something to look forward to, Jon. I refuse to be the only man waiting in agonising suspense today."

As if on cue, a woman's voice called out to them. Numair flinched and then bowed his head in respectful farewell to the king. Jon nodded back, and patted the other man's shoulder before he dismissed him.

"I don't know what Daine needs either." He said quietly. "It hasn't been easy for either of you by the sounds of it, and I won't lie and tell you it'll be easy for her now. But I know that you'll do more by just being with her than you might if you drained the magic from every mage in my city."

"Thank you," the other man bowed again and then quickly turned on his heel. Daine had barely stirred but the midwife's keen eyes had seen enough to know to call Numair back. When he sat on the bed beside her the girl's eyes fluttered open and she smiled slowly.

"Numair," she whispered, her voice slurred with exhaustion and the lingering effects of the sleeping potion the midwife had given her. "You look terrible."

He laughed gently and tucked a sweat-soaked strand of her hair behind her ear. "I've been talking with Jon," he told her, watching sleepy confusion cobweb across her eyes before he explained why the king had been there. "It appears that I accidentally leeched everyone's magic away. And all the rider's ponies are refusing to be ridden today for some reason."

Daine's eyes opened wide, and before she could answer him she had to cover her face to hide her hopeless, embarrassed laughter. "Odds bobs!" She gasped, "Can we not do _anything_ without our magic making it ridiculously dramatic?"

"It seems not," he smiled back. "But at least people are forgiving us today."

She sobered a little, and her forehead creased as some of the pain started returning. "I think they could hear me crying." She admitted, and clutched his hand a little tighter. "I feel bad for it, but I can't help it."

"Well, that's something I can help with." He said, filled with sudden purpose, and raised his free hand. He gathered magic in his palm and sent it to ward the room. Daine watched, her eyes focusing but moving sluggishly as she followed the fading sparks.

"Thank you. I was worried."

"Anything," he kissed her forehead. "Besides, if the baby is born as a bird and the room's not warded then what's to stop it from flying straight out of the window?"

"Dolt." She pulled a face at him. "Baby birds can't fly any better than baby humans."

"Then I _really _don't want it making a break for the window." He said seriously. She couldn't help laughing at that, and then winced and arched her back. She shuddered until she found the baby's new shape and copied it with stubborn exhaustion.

"Ow! I hope it's born as a baby _crocodile_, Numair Salmalin. Then it can bite you for that."

"Well, since we already agreed on the name _Snappy_…"

"Only as a middle name. The first name is _Cub_, remember?"

"Okay, I surrender. You win." He winced at the name for effect, provoking another stifled laugh, and then he smiled more softly. "I hope it's not born as a crocodile, really. After two days of this you deserve the most beautiful little baby in the world, Daine."

"Oh, it will be." She smiled and even in her weariness the expression was radiant. "I told you - it will have your eyes."

888


End file.
